Long beautiful hair: shining-gleaning-flaxen-waxen-give me down to there hair. Shoulder length or longer. Hair, hair, hair, long as God can grow it.

These are lyrics from the rock musical HAIR. Featuring long-haired hippies and their antics and the Age of Aquarius. My now husband and I saw this live on stage in Los Angeles in 1968. It was quite a statement describing the changes in society. Flower children and “free love” and hair. Only hobos had long unkempt hair until the hippy movement. Gone was the clean cut flat top for men and ratted beehive hairsprayed creations for women.

Free flowing long hair was in. We didn’t have blow dryers in those days so some of us would actually pull out the ironing board and iron our hair straight. Being oh so careful not to scorch or burn our coveted long locks. Or if that was impossible you would grow it afro style and perm it.

We all have it. Some of us are born with it, others are born bald. It grows, we cut it and shape it into fashion statements.

Some of us become slaves to the bottle, hair dye that is. And spend enormous amount of money to brighten our lives and stave off signs of aging. Some like my grandmother would put a beautiful blue rinse on her locks. I remember the bottle she kept under the sink.

Some of us embrace greying graciously like my friend who has been a beautiful shade of silver since her thirties. She just recently started taking drum lessons and suggested we start a band. One of her friends would be the vocalist, I would pull out my dusty guitar and her other friend would pound a tambourine. I told her we would all go shopping for grey wigs and would name our band: Shades of Grey.

Some, men mostly, choose baldness. Sometimes baldness chooses us because of illness or genes. Wisp by wisp it drops or some choose to speed the inevitable total loss and use a razor.

Some of my friends are now cancer free, no more bandannas or hats or wigs or toupees to mourn their loss and conceal their journey to health. They have new hair in different colors and textures. Some with tightly wound curls that sing: rejoice, celebrate I have returned.

Some of us have hairy faces, and I don’t just mean men. Moustaches and beards and goatees. You name it. Long sideburns. Just watch Duck Dynasty. Some of us have hair sprouting up in strange places we could never imagine.

Like ears and nostrils, resembling small shrubbery. It takes some elaborate measures to keep these areas groomed with countless ear and nose trimmers to choose from.

Some of us go to barbers to help us in the hair removal process. Some of us go to salons. There we subject ourselves to tortuous methods of hair removal. Waxing of the face, upper lips, eyebrows, bikini waxes and Brazilian waxes. Just the thought of this makes me cover my face and cross my legs.

Others have used home methods of waxing, feeling the sting and pain alone. We use razors and depilatories and messy creams, and devices like the NO NO or the famous Epilady from the 90’s. The Epilady was an electrical device with a coil on it that grabbed and removed each hair individually by the root really fast. After using it I was certain was an ancient torture method, invented by a man who hated women. I would rather give birth naturally.

I returned that item the day after Christmas to Price Club. I was not the first in line with one mind you. The clerk took one look at it, threw it over his shoulder adding to the pile of hundreds behind him and handed me back my $$.

It’s quite a phenomenon now to remove hair, especially the men. Smooth chests seem to be desired. I remember in my day, hairy chests were “in”. Just look at Sean Connery. Even my sons were in some kind of competition with who had the most chest hair at the earliest age. One of my friends husband had so much back and chest hair we would tease her about having to mow it. Serious hair removal is only achieved by laser or electrolysis which actually destroys the hair follicle.

Some of us have the opposite problem. Not enough hair. It has driven sane men to actually think comb overs work. Some are just eccentric billionaires. Some with no money try to disguise the loss of hair by spraying the scalp with colored hair spray. And some have very bad toupees. Several images come to mind.

What’s worse is when they go into hock to have hair plugs installed in their dead hair follicles. Some get hair transplants with varied success. Some try to stimulate the growth of the hair follicle. It’s sort of like face lifts and botox. It usually shows.

For some especially women the current style is hair extensions, very pretty. The worst is dreadlocks because of the drug and lifestyle connotation. Not to mention how unkempt and dirty they look. When I see them I unconsciously look for little creatures moving, which makes eye contact difficult.

As for me, I’ll just listen to my hairdresser who says “for my age” I have beautiful hair. I will continue to color it for and keep it long enough to pull into a ponytail or the new side pony braid since every once in awhile I still like to horse around.